Saturday, 11 January 2014

Meeting my first cousin, Janine

My father had one sister, Liz, along with three half-brothers and a half-sister. He died in 1971 and in the next year or so, our family moved and lost touch with his family.

Fast forward to the mid 1990s and I found Liz (my grandmother had since died). We kept in touch for a couple years but lost touch again when she moved. I found out in 2007 she'd died and I went to the memorial service.

Liz and Armand had five daughters (so my first cousins) ... I am FaceBook friends with four of them. Because of the strange circumstances, we don't really know each other, though. Isn't that sad?

Guess what?! I spent today with one of Liz's daughters, Janine. Whoohoo! She and I are the same age (Janine has two older sisters and two younger sisters) and this is the first time we'd ever met. She and her husband, Kelly, live about 1.5 hours NE of Toronto and I drove to their place.

Janine had lots of stories to tell (I know very little about my father's side of the family) and pictures ... and even an old scrapbook of clippings our grandfather had put together. Janine made delicious pizza for lunch and Kelly made chilli for supper (I was too full from lunch to have any, though).

First cousins ... Janine and I

Kelly and Janine

It was great to get to meet Janine and Kelly and spend time (eight hours!) with them! I hope to see them again soon!

Update: Sister Sarah has reminded us that we met back in the summer of 1998 at Janine's mom's place. She and I couldn't have spent too much time together because neither of us remember. I have a picture of Janine and one of her sisters so it did happen.